Loe raamatut: «The Bungalow Boys Along the Yukon», lehekülg 4

CHAPTER X
THE TIDAL "BORE."

"What's the matter, Sandy?"

Tom spoke as the dory swung dizzily between heaven and earth.

"I – I'm scared!" confessed Sandy, turning a white face to his chum.

"Pshaw! Cheer up, Sandy," said Tom, trying to put a bold face on the matter, as was always his way.

"Yes, we'll come out of it all right," struck in Jack bravely, concealing his real fear of the outcome of the adventure.

"We've been in worse fixes than this before and got through all right," supplemented Tom, and Sandy appeared to pluck up some heart from the confident tones of his companions.

"Tell you what," suggested Jack suddenly, "I've got an idea."

"What is it?"

"Why, to find out where we are. It's no use asking those wooden Indians; they wouldn't say if they did know, and couldn't if they didn't."

"Well, but what's your plan?" asked Tom impatiently.

"Just this. You remember how the captain on the Northerner found out when he was dangerously near to the coast by blowing the whistle and waiting for the echo?"

Tom nodded.

"Well, why can't we do the same by hollering at the top of our voices?"

"Good boy! I see your idea. If we're near land, we ought to catch the echo of our voices."

"That's the scheme exactly."

The boat was tossing too violently to stand up in it, but the boys placed their hands to their mouths, funnel-wise, and set up as loud an uproar as they could.

Sure enough, back out of the fog faint and obscure, but still audible, came an unmistakable reply.

"Hul-l-o-o-o-o!"

Their faces brightened. Even Sandy broke into a grin.

"We're aboon the land!" he cried out.

"Must be," declared Tom positively.

He looked at the two natives, who had been regarding the proceedings with no more interest than they appeared to display in anything else.

"Row that way," he ordered in a loud, clear voice, pointing off into the fog in the direction from whence the answer to their shouting had come. The natives obeyed without a word. Whether they understood him or not Tom never knew, but they appeared to apprehend his vigorous gesture well enough.

As they rowed along, the boys repeated their practice, and every time the echo came louder and more clearly.

"Wish we'd thought of that before," sighed Jack, "we might be in the harbor by this time."

"Better late than never," Tom assured him cheerily.

Before long they could hear the roar of waves breaking on the coast. The natives apparently heard them, too, and kept the boat out a little. The angry sound of the breaking waters was sufficient warning that no landing could be attempted there.

"We must be running along the coast," decided Tom.

"How can you guess that?" inquired Jack.

"Yes, I dinna ken how you know, unless you hae the second sight," agreed Sandy, who had in a large measure recovered his self-possession at the idea of the proximity of land.

"Easy enough," responded Tom, "the echo only comes from one side. If we were in a harbor or channel it would come from both sides."

"So much the worse," declared Jack. "We know now that we are not anywhere near Kadiak, for that is rock walled on either side and we should get the echo from both directions."

"Still, it's something to know that we are even within touch of land," said Tom, and in this they all agreed.

After a while the roaring of the surge grew less loud. This gave Tom an idea.

"We must be near to an inlet or something that will afford a landing place," he said, as the thunder of the surf diminished and finally almost died away. "What do you say if we go ashore?"

"What kind of a country will we find?" objected Jack.

"It couldn't be worse than tossing about in this dory, could it?" demanded Tom. "At any rate, we might find people ashore and a shelter and some food."

Both Jack and Sandy agreed to this, and Tom made motions to the native oarsmen that they were to make a landing if possible. In response to his gesture the men nodded as if they understood what was wanted, and began rowing directly toward the direction in which they had guessed the landing place lay.

As they neared the shore, which was still, however, invisible through the mist, the surf thunder grew louder. But the natives did not appear alarmed. No doubt they were thoroughly used to handling their craft in the surf and such proved to be the case.

When they got quite close to the shore and the boys could see a dark outline against the mist which they judged was a wall of cliffs, the two natives stopped rowing and back-watered. They did this till a big wave came along behind the dory, lifting its stern high in the air. Then, with a piercing yell they dug their blades into the water.

The dory was flung forward like a stone from a sling. The men leaped out as the wave broke, and ran the craft amidst the surf and spume high and dry upon what proved to be a sandy beach in a little covet between two frowning battlements of rocky cliff.

The boys scrambled out. Even though they had not the remotest idea where they were, the touch of solid earth felt good under their feet after that blundering voyage in the mist. But their surroundings were cheerless enough. Above them, except where the soft blanket of fog obscured the view, towered the dripping walls of black rock, all moist and shiny with the mist.

On the beach, the surf thundered and screamed as the waves broke and receded. Now and then the sharp shriek of some sea-bird rose startlingly clear above the voice of the sea. The boys felt lonely and wretched. But this feeling, seemingly, was not shared by the stoical Aleuts. They drew out pipes and began to smoke in silence. They appeared to pay no attention to the boys whatever, and Tom began to get angry at their indifference. After all, their blundering had placed the boys in their predicament, and Tom felt, and so did his companions, that the natives ought to make at least some effort to right their error.

"Here, you," he said angrily, addressing one of them, "where are we?"

The man shook his head. If he knew, he did not betray it by a change of expression or a spoken syllable.

"Ask him about getting something to eat," said Sandy. "Mon, but I'm famished."

Tom tried to convey this idea to the natives in speech, but it was plain they did not understand. Then he fell back on the sign language. Here he succeeded better. He pointed to his mouth and then rubbed his stomach, a sign understood from the Arctic Ocean to Statenland. The native grinned and gave over smoking a minute. He nodded his head.

"Bye'm bye," he said, "bye'm bye."

"Well, at least he understands that much English," cried Tom triumphantly. "I wish I could tell him to hurry up. 'Bye'm bye' might mean any time."

But in answer to further efforts, the native only nodded and smiled amiably. After a while, during which the boys strolled about disconsolately, the natives smoked their pipes out, and then began to talk in their guttural, grunting tongue. Of course, the boys could not understand what they were saying, but as well as they could judge the two men were coming to some sort of a decision. Suddenly they got to their feet and made off through the fog at a swift pace. The boys ran after them, shouting, but the Aleuts speedily vanished.

It was a pity that the boys could not know that the two natives, after a discussion, had decided to set off across the island to a fishing settlement for help. For it was Wolf Island on which the party had landed and the natives had only delayed to get a smoke before starting for aid. But of this the boys knew nothing.

Hour after hour they waited with despairing faces for the two Aleuts, whom they thought had basely deserted them. At length Tom reached a decision.

"Those fellows have left us. We'll leave them," he declared.

"How?" inquired Jack.

"In the dory."

"Which way will we go?"

"Toward the direction from which we came. We are bound to get somewhere, and at any rate the fog seems to be lifting. We can keep track of the shore by the echo, and so find our way back to Kadiak."

"The sea's pretty rough," objected Jack.

"The dory's a good sea boat, and anyway it isn't as rough as it was. I'm for pulling out of here right away before we waste any more time."

"So am I," agreed Jack, and Sandy, although he looked rather sober at the thought of venturing out on the big swells again, assented to Tom's plan.

By good luck they managed to get the dory launched on a big sea, and almost before they knew it, they were out on the tossing waves once more. The dory proved heavy and hard to pull, but the boys all had well-seasoned muscles and they made fairly good progress.

They were laboriously toiling in the direction Tom had pointed out, when Jack gave a shrill cry of real fear.

"Look! Look there!" he cried.

For a moment they all stopped rowing and gazed ahead.

Bearing down on them was a towering, walllike ridge of white, foamy waves. They were higher than their heads, even had the boys been standing upright in the boat. The mighty phalanx of water appeared to be rushing down on them with the purpose of engulfing them in its maw.

"What is it?" gasped Jack, cowering.

"More whales!" shouted Sandy.

But it was something far worse than any creature of the deep. Although they did not know it, the mighty waves that it appeared certain would presently engulf them, were caused by the tide-bore, the irresistible wall of water that twice each day sweeps down the east coast of Kadiak between the islands that form what is virtually an inland channel. The mighty forces of the Pacific tide and the Japan current unite to make the titanic tide-rip which now threatened the boys.

With blanched faces they watched its oncoming. Escape was impossible. Sandy covered his eyes and crouched in the bottom of the dory. Jack shook with fear. Tom alone kept a grip on his faculties.

"Get her round. Let her head into the wave quartering, or we're goners!" he shouted.

Swirling and breaking and crying out with a thousand voices, the parapet of water marched down on the seemingly doomed boat.

CHAPTER XI
ADRIFT ON THE OCEAN

The dory was a better sea boat than they had imagined. In a situation where a craft of another build would not have lived an instant, she succeeded in riding the first onslaught of the tide-bore. In another instant, Tom and Jack had her around with stern to the stampeding seas and were being borne swiftly along.

Alongside, a thousand angry, choppy waves reached up like hungry hands, as though determined to come on board and drag the craft to her doom. The manner in which the boat handled surprised and delighted Tom, and Jack was no less pleased. True their position was still a highly precarious one, but at least the watery grave they had dreaded had not yet engulfed them.

Sandy sat up in the bottom of the boat and looked about with wondering eyes.

"We're all right the noo?" he asked.

"I won't say that," rejoined Tom, "but at least we have got over the first great danger."

"What are we doing?"

"Riding along on the top of the tide-rip, for that's what it must be, and now I remember hearing of such a thing on this coast."

"How long will it keep on, I wonder?" questioned Sandy.

"I don't know. I suppose till the tide is full or till we get out of the passage that we must be in."

The others looked at him silently.

"But this is a dandy boat," went on Tom cheerily, plying his steering oar, for there was no need to row in that rushing current, "she rides like a chip."

Even a powerful steamer, if caught where the boys were, could have done little more than they were doing to meet the emergency. Her only course would have been to run before the furious tide. The boys began to be resigned to their fortune. The fog seemed to lift occasionally now and then, shutting down, however, as densely as ever between the intervals of lighter weather.

Wild screams of sea birds that flew by like spirits of mist assailed their ears. Now and then the herculean splash of a great dolphin feeding in the tide came close alongside and startled them smartly.

True it was that they were still afloat and now appeared likely to remain so, but each moment was carrying them rapidly further from their friends and closer and closer to dangers whose nature they could only surmise.

As Sandy thought of all this, his fears began to return. His lip quivered.

"I wish we'd never left the ship," he said at last.

"That's a fine way to talk," spoke Tom sternly. "When you're in a scrape the only thing to do is to try to get out of it as best you can."

"That's the stuff," assented Jack, "but if we only had something to eat, I'd feel a little better."

"Maybe there's something under that stern seat," suggested Tom, indicating the place he meant. Sandy raised the seat, which tilted back disclosing a locker, and gave a cry of delight. Two tins of beef, some packages of crackers and a big pie reposed there. Evidently Bill Rainier, the pilot, believed in carrying lunch with him when he went out in a fog.

"Jiminy crickets," roared Jack, as one after another Sandy held up the eatables, "just think, those have been there all this time! Let's eat and forget our troubles."

"Better go slow," admonished Tom, no less pleased, however, than the others at this unexpected good fortune.

Jack cut open the meat tins with his knife and they fell to eating as they discussed their situation. They made a good meal, not forgetting liberal portions of the pie. But the lack of water troubled them. Crackers and salt beef with dried raisin pie do not make a lunch calculated to allay thirst. But they were in no mood to complain. The food alone heartened them wonderfully and put them in a mood to face their dilemma less despairingly.

Little by little the waves began to grow smaller. The current grew less swift.

"We must have reached some place where the channel widens and the tide can spread out," observed Tom, noticing this. "Now if the fog would only lift, maybe we could get ashore some place."

"Let's try the oars again," suggested Jack.

"That's a fine idea if we only knew where to row to," rejoined Tom. "I'm afraid we'll have to drift till the fog lifts. I've no more idea which way our course lies than the man in the moon."

"Same here. I'm all twisted up like a ball of yarn," admitted Jack.

Although they had been afloat for such a long time, it was still daylight. At that time of year in those regions it is light almost all day long. This was a good thing, for if darkness had overtaken them they would doubtless have become even more alarmed than they were. For some time they drifted on, when all at once a sudden shift of the wind came. The fog was whipped into white ropy wreaths that drifted off like smoke. And there before them, not half a mile off, was a fair sized bay edged by rocky cliffs, but green and tree-grown close by the water. The blue bay, smooth and calm compared to the open sea, led back into the heart of a noble mountain panorama. Beyond the coast hills were snow-covered peaks and inaccessible valleys. Between the hills that formed the bay, the vegetation was plainly fresh and verdant.

"Hurray!" shouted Jack, carried away by enthusiasm at the sight of land once more.

Tom checked him gently.

"Remember we have no idea where we are yet," he said. "This country is sparsely settled and we may have stumbled on some desert part of it."

Jack's face fell, and Sandy, who had been about to share his rejoicing, remained silent.

"Can't you figure out what land this is?" asked Jack.

"I've not the remotest idea. I'm like you, all twisted up as to locality."

"That bore gave us such a shaking up, I couldn't tell east from west," observed Sandy.

"At any rate, that land yonder is no illusion," declared Tom cheerily. "Come on, boys, get busy with the oars and we'll be ashore in no time."

"I hope it is inhabited," said Jack.

"Same here; but that remains to be seen. At any rate, judging by the green trees and grass there's water there from the mountains beyond. We can stop some place ashore and make camp."

CHAPTER XII
SHIFTING FOR THEMSELVES

This was voted a good idea. As they drew closer to the shore the aspect of the little bay became more inviting.

Tom pointed to a strip of beach which bordered a rather deeper indentation on the edge of the inlet.

"I guess that's the place for us to land," he said. "Looks like there is water there and a good beach."

Wearily – for now that the strain of their wild ride on the tide-rip was over, they felt exhausted – wearily they pulled on the oars, moving the heavy dory slowly over the placid waters of the inlet. The sea, its force broken by an outcropping reef across the mouth of the miniature bay, broke gently on the shore, and it was an easy matter to make a landing. The dory was pulled as far up the beach as they in their tired state could manage, and its painter made fast to a stunted willow tree.

The beach, bordered with trees and stunted shrubs, rose upward. They mounted it and found themselves on a yielding, marshy carpet of moss. It was the tundra of Alaska. It would have made hard walking to cross it, but while they were pondering the advisability of doing so, Tom made a discovery.

"Look! a path!" he exclaimed. "It runs right along here."

He pointed to a beaten path, plainly enough made by human beings, leading along the top of the "sea-wall" between the tundra marsh and the beach.

"There must be people here. Somebody must have made it."

"Evidently, and look over there, that's the answer."

Tom had followed the path slightly in advance of the others. Now he had come to a halt, pointing toward a singular structure at some little distance, toward which it was clear that the path led. The hut was shaped like a low beehive and appeared to be built of drift-wood and peat.

"It's a native hut of some sort," declared Jack, rather an alarmed look coming into his eyes.

The boys' experience with Aleuts had not inclined them to place much confidence in the natives, for it will be recalled that our heroes thought that their two boatmen had deliberately left them on the beach.

"There's no smoke coming from it," said Tom.

"In that case, maybe it is deserted."

"Perhaps so. But we had better be careful."

"That's right, after what we experienced from those two rascals of the pilot's, I'm taking no chances with these people."

Tom did not confide to his chums another bit of information that he had acquired concerning this part of Alaska from the captain of the Northerner. This was that in a part of the country in which they were cast away, the native tribes are ugly and vicious, never visiting a white settlement except when they must, and refusing to have any intercourse with Caucasians.

He had heard many tales of the bloodshed and theft attributed to these renegade natives, and as may be imagined, the thought that perhaps they had stumbled on a camp of them was not a pleasant one. However, Tom said nothing for fear of unnecessarily scaring his companions. The landscape looked wild enough to form the dwelling place of any desperate natives who, for any reason, wished to evade the United States revenue cutters and missionary ships.

But the need of water was imperative, and judging by the greater luxuriance of the trees and grass near the hut, there was water there. In fact, the presence of the hut in that site argued the existence of water near by. They watched the solitary structure for some minutes. But no sign of life appeared about it. Seemingly, they were the only human beings for many miles in that wild country.

"Well, come on," said Tom at length; "anything is better than enduring this thirst any longer, and I'm pretty sure there must be water yonder."

They followed the path and soon found themselves on the threshold of the hut. Its door, a clumsy contrivance, was ajar, and littered all about were fish bones, scales, and bones and remnants of animals. A rank odor assailed their nostrils, the true smell of an Aleut settlement.

Tom strode boldly forward and was about to cross the threshold when something dashed out of the hut, making him jump back with an involuntary shout of alarm. For a minute he was sure they had been attacked by whoever dwelt within. His companions, too, echoed his cry, but the next instant they all burst out laughing. What had alarmed them so was a small red fox that had darted off like a flash.

"That shows us no one is inside," chuckled Tom, turning to his comrades. "I guess we've dispossessed the sole inhabitant."

They crossed the threshold and found themselves in a low, smoke-begrimed structure with a dome-shaped roof. In the middle of the roof was a hole presumably for the smoke to escape, although soot hung thick on the rafters that supported the grass-sods, peat and earth that formed the covering of the rude dwelling.

Tom bent and examined a heap of ashes in the middle of the dirt floor under the hole.

"Nobody has been here for a long time," he declared, "except wild beasts."

"I wonder who put it up?" inquired Sandy.

"Trappers, maybe; but most likely Aleuts," replied Tom. "I've seen pictures of their huts and they are very like this one. I never thought we'd have to take up quarters in one, though."

"Hoot! d'ye think we'll have to stay here lang?" asked Sandy.

"Impossible to tell," rejoined Tom. "Of course, as soon as they find we're gone they will start on a search for us; but unless they find those rascally Aleuts they'll never know what became of us, unless they stumble on us accidentally."

There was a brief but eloquent silence, which Tom dispelled cheerily.

"The first job is to look for water," said he. "Let's explore a little."

They left the hut, but before they went Tom picked up an old tin pail that lay on the floor in a corner. He did not explain what he wanted this for. As he had expected, where the luxuriant growth flourished, was a stream which ran down crystal clear and cold as ice from the snow mountains to the sea.

The sight of this made the boys forget all their troubles temporarily. They lay flat on their stomachs and drank to repletion. Never had anything tasted half so good as the waters of that mountain stream. Their thirst quenched, Tom methodically filled his pail with water and then started back.

"What are you going to do?" demanded Jack in some astonishment.

"Clean out the hut and get ready for supper while you fellows catch some fish."

"Fish for supper? Where?" demanded Jack.

"Right in this creek. I saw them dart off when we came down, but they will soon be back."

"How about hooks?"

"I saw some in the bottom of the boat. And by turning over some of those stones, I guess you'll find some sort of things that will do for bait. Hurry up now, boys, and while you're getting the tackle, bring the rest of the grub and the oars out of the boat."

Glad to be busy, the boys all hurried off on their tasks. When Jack and Sandy had brought the oars and tackle from the boat, they set off on their fishing expedition. Long alder limbs broken off from the bushes that overhung the creek, served them for poles. Under the rocks, as Tom had surmised, they found fat, white grubs in abundance. The fish bit hungrily, for it was still early in the year. Soon they each had a fine string. With lighter hearts, for now they had at least the essentials of existence, they set out on the return journey to the hut.

When they got back, they found that Tom had made a fire, using matches from his water-proof box, which none of the boys would have gone without. It crackled up cheerily. When he had a good bed of red coals, Tom split the fish which the others had scaled and cleaned, and held them on sharpened sticks above the blaze till they were cooked. With crackers and the broiled fish they made a rough but sufficient meal.

There was plenty of firewood in the hut and they made a roaring blaze, so that, lacking blankets as they did, they would not get cold. In a corner was a pile of sweet-scented dried grass, evidently used as beds by whoever had occupied the hut before them. On this they threw themselves down while the fire glowed cheerily, warming the hut comfortably since the door had been closed.

Despite the strangeness of their position on this wild, unknown coast, they were too weary to remain awake long. Outside came occasionally the cry of a bird or the booming of the sea, but it all acted as a lullaby to the three tired boys.

One by one their eyes closed and they dropped off into the deep, dreamless slumber of exhaustion. Never, in fact, had they slept more profoundly and peaceably than they did in the smoky native hut on the wild shores upon which they had been so strangely cast away.